I would personally read the manual on REAPER's editing functions, and get used to it. I think you will find it is more than capable... and in many instances, a faster, more flexible editing system than many of the external editors...Just my opinion of course...

not to mention, if you haven't purchased yet, an insane deal...

__________________
“Wouldn’t it be great to be gifted? In fact… It turns out that choices lead to habits. Habits become talents. Talents are labeled gifts. You’re not born this way, you get this way.” – Seth Godin

And I have yet to find out how I can line up two stereo tracks and then edit the audio in one at a VERY fine level so it matches the other.

Also I didnt metnion bu tthsi stuff was recorded freehand no time code no metronome, etc., which is what amkes the job interesting.

I hate to say it, but this would be a piece of cake in PT, for example.

Now if you know something I don`t about editing audio within Reaper, please share. I would LOVE to discover I already own the tools, as Sony Sound Forge appears to start at around 300 GB pounds locally.
Neither cheap nor free!

If Audacity would allow you to have two stereo tracks up at once and edit just one, this would do the trick but as far as I can see it doesnt.
And I just seem to crash waveosaur every time I try it.

from what i reading here it seems you want to load in "mywav.wav" amongst others, and edit it etc. then save that as the original file(s) (100% destructive) or if your a little more cautious save to new files.

any editing you do in reaper can be destructively applied with render (to stems - with master mix unticked for multitrack) but this creates new files, which you may find intoxicatingly annoying..

however the sws (b4 beta) now incudes 'autorender', which is basically a one-keypress 'render this region using my last render settings' feature.

you create a region surrounding the edited audio, select the tracks to be saved, hit auto-render and each edited track is rendered/saved according to your render settings and placed in the autorender default render path location, so seperate from project folders or reaper media folders.

using that could take out the PITA of constant render dialogs and file location faffing to destructively apply edits..

though if its just straight editing and no fx, then i tend to just GLUE the items and rename the source take to something descriptive.

While it may not be the most elegant way of doing it, I would probably just create two tracks, make one the left side and one the right side, edit the side I wanted and recombine.

I rarely (if ever) find a need to use an external editor. If I needed a pencil, I might though.

What I have been banging on about is a real case I have at present.
I have TWO stereo drum tracks, full kit on both.

I played them in and tried to double track as accurately as I could, but there are a number of timing errors that I would rather correct than keep doing take after take drop in after drop in till I get it right.

All I need to do is take the drum track that is how I want it to be and edit out the little errors in the OTHER track by moving bits of the audio along the timeline to get the two parts to match a little more closely.

In pro tools I can set up a visual representation of the two wave forms next to each other, select specific pieces of the waveform B and move it so it matches waveform A.
Now because this is all to do with the basic rhythm track, it needs to be done with precision and with my crap drumming there are a LOT of these little timing mis-matches to sort out.

Nobody so far has shown me a way I can quickly, accurately and RELIABLY do this in Reaper, hence me asking if anyone knew of an external audio editor that would make this easily do-able at a reasonable price.

Now before you answer, read this again so you are SURE you know exactly what I mean please, guys.

I would have thought that this is a core function on ant audio editor, but there ya go.

load in the tracks on two tracks and on your 'bad track' split and move, split and move to line up -
using tab to transient or dynamic split and adams cool 'move contents' rather just move items method is prob quicker, depends how off the bad take is but the essence of it - just the good old 'S' key.

btw in v4 with mouse modifiers you can have a modifier set to 'move item' based on selection which saves you doing the splitting, just make a selection and move, which is more like PT i believe.

But for the longer term, the idea of having to split edit and join on every fix you do horrifies me.
Are all you guys such perfect players you never need to do this shit, or are you just not that fussy about timing?

But for the longer term, the idea of having to split edit and join on every fix you do horrifies me.
Are all you guys such perfect players you never need to do this shit, or are you just not that fussy about timing?

I'm curious, how is that possible to do better (and more important: faster) in PT ?
Are you referring to Beat Detective ?

All I need to do is take the drum track that is how I want it to be and edit out the little errors in the OTHER track by moving bits of the audio along the timeline to get the two parts to match a little more closely.

curious why you need an audio editor to do this? split, slip and slide to your heart's content in reaper... all non-destructively.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ivansc

the idea of having to split edit and join on every fix you do horrifies me.
Are all you guys such perfect players you never need to do this shit, or are you just not that fussy about timing?

no need to join. split it, move it. done. i do this across up to 12 tracks of drums all the time.

just finding it difficult to adjust to what seems to me to be a click and menu intensive way of doing what should be a neasy task.

undersandable, getting to know reapers slightly different approach can throw you - as i see it they (cockos) were of the opinion at least until recently, that key presses beat mouse fiddling and 'tools' for speed. that is balancing out now though so we have every choice.

currently in v3 the 'usual' method involves one extra key press compared to PT:

'click drag start point to end point' (create time selection)
hit the key for 'split at time selection'
then move.

compared to:
click drag start point to end point
then move, for PT

also with the 'split item under mouse cursor' action bound to a key
you can:
mouseplace + 'hit key'
mouseplace + 'hit key'.
then move.
which arguably in practice is prob quicker than creating a time selection but is a 2 hander.

however fear not - in v4 you can set it up to work exactly as PT, i.e 'select, then move' as you describe with the wonders of mouse modifiers.

I hate to say it, but right here is one of the classic problems the devs face.
A lot of us come to Reaper with a huge amount of experience in other environments where things have tended to be done in parallel ways in the vast majority of apps.
And then J & Co come along and upset the apple cart by making us actually work at getting our own environment set up before we can do any work!

Being a lazy old git, I AM having a lot of difficulty adapting to this, especially as my main objective here is to make music.

I suspect this is what has prompted the sudden spate of "Reaper should be simpler to work in from the get-go for newbies"
It isn`t the newbies that need help adjusting, they have no ingrained habits.
It`s all us old duffers!

And I suppose this thread should be heading to the lounge any time...

I will just plod on and I`m sure it will all click eventually.
One of my biggest problems is figuring out something cool for my config and then forgetting how I did it.

Yes even though Reaper excels at everything else, I can understand why you did!

Area selection and processing aren't its strong point at the moment, but im sure that will change and could have benefits to editors (coming from SF and PT) for sound design, and composition/recording/tracking

I agree with what you say about learning one thing and then Cockos change it slightly so you sort of have to learn it again - I can't get used to the 'loop brace" as area selection for editing in Reaper, as the clearest way for me is the PT/SF way of highlighting with the selection cursor